EVENTS

Next week (June 5-9) the United Nations is hosting The Ocean Conference to support the conservation and sustainable development of the world’s oceans, seas and marine resources.

The Conference aims to be the game changer that will reverse the decline in the health of our ocean for people, planet and prosperity.

You can read more about the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 14 here.

The Avaaz global campaign network has undertaken an ambitious petition drive with the goal of a million signatures to increase public pressure on the planet’s biggest contributors to the plastic waste polluting our oceans. If Avaaz reaches a million signatures, the Head of the UN Environment Programme will highlight the petition from the UN conference podium, and assist the Avaaz campaign to ban single-use plastics. (Links to more information about the plastic threat are at the end of this post.)

As of this writing 883,364 have signed. Let’s deploy our godless heathen superpowers and help Avaaz get to a million.

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100 MILLION plastic bottles are thrown away every day, choking our oceans in plastic waste. Governments meet in days to outline clean ocean commitments. If a million of us call on top polluters to stop the flood of plastics, the Head of the UN’s Environment Programme will announce our petition to the plenary and use our voices to help oceans breathe again.

Dear friends,

By 2050, our oceans will have more plastic trash than fish.

It’s shameful. Half of the plastic made we use just once and throw out, choking our seas and all the animals in it.

But in days, our governments can stem this tide when they meet at a historic summit to outline their clean ocean commitments. Public pressure just got #2 polluter Indonesia to commit to a 70% reduction in plastic waste! Now we need to go after the other top polluters.

If one million of us get behind a global call, the Head of the UN Environment Programme will announce our petition from the summit podium and work with us to push countries to ban single-use plastics and let oceans breathe again. Add your name:

No matter where we live, each breath we take connects us to our oceans. Most of our oxygen is generated by them. They regulate our climate and weather, turn water into clouds that give us rain. And oceans provide a home for near 80% of all living things on earth. We can’t live without our oceans.

But now, our oceans can’t live without us.

Humans have destroyed ocean health and we need to fix it. The good news is, more than half the plastic trash in our oceans come from just five nations. If we focus global attention on the biggest polluters now, we can create global system-change for plastic-free seas. What’s missing is the motivation — and that’s where we come in.

Let’s build a massive call on our governments to stop suffocating our oceans. Once we reach a million signers, Avaaz will launch targeted campaigns on the top polluters to ramp up the pressure for them to act.

Avaaz is a 44-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Leading medical and mental health experts describe so-called conversion therapy, which practitioners claim can force a change in a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation, as dangerous, ineffective and unnecessary.

Conversion therapy is based on the false and hateful lie that being LGBTQ is a defect or disorder that needs curing. It is rooted in anti-gay and anti-transgender bigotry and based on lies that have been disproven again and again.

Recently, the Supreme Court let California’s ban on conversion therapy for minors stand.1 Now progressive champion Rep. Ted Lieu, who pushed for the crucial protections in California, has reintroduced a bill to ban conversion therapy nationally by calling it what it is: fraud.

Nearly every major medical, psychological, psychiatric, social work and professional counseling organization in the country has publicly discredited conversion therapy.2 The practice is based on hateful lies and uses controversial practices like “violent role play, reenactment of past abuses, and exercises involving nudity and intimate touching.”3 Multiple studies have found people who undergo conversion therapy to be at higher risk of depression, alienation from family, anxiety and suicide.4 Children forced to go through the therapy are at even higher risk.5

The Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act is simple, Rep. Lieu said.

“It says it is fraud if you treat someone for a condition that doesn’t exist and there’s no medical condition known as being gay. LGBTQ people were born perfect; there is nothing to treat them for. And by calling this what it should be, which is fraud, it would effectively shut down most of the organizations.”6

States like Oregon, Vermont and New Mexico have already banned the practice for minors.7 The practice is dangerous for anyone who is subjected to it. With the recent Supreme Court ruling, we have momentum on our side to build awareness of the dangers of this practice and political support to ban it. If we can help spread understanding of how dangerous and fraudulent conversion therapy is, we can undermine the credibility of the those who practice and promote it and keep LGBTQ people safe.

Tell Congress: Conversion therapy is fraud. Protect LGBTQ people by passing the Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act of 2017. Click the link below to sign the petition:

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*CREDO Mobile is a lefty activist mobile company: every month it allocates a portion of its revenue to various activist non-profits, as voted and allocated by its customers. (CREDO is, for example, Planned Parenthood’s largest corporate donor.) Consider switching to CREDO as your mobile carrier, and stop funding anti-democratic donors like AT&T that fund conservatives. They offer pretty much all the same deals on phones, contract buyouts, incentives, fees, etc.

Clarke’s resignation is great news for Milwaukee County, but if he really is being appointed to DHS, that’s terrible news for the country. That’s why we’re joining forces with our partners at Voces de la Frontera to stop Sheriff Clark and hold the DHS accountable.

Amazingly, DHS has not confirmed that they actually offered Clarke the job he claims. There’s still time to sign the petition urging DHS Secretary John Kelly to not appoint Sheriff Clarke to any position.

Clarke is incompetent and corrupt. He has abused his power by attacking political opponents. He has enriched himself by acting as a media mouthpiece for white supremacists. He is unfit for any office and should face criminal charges for the deaths and human rights abuses at the Milwaukee County Jail.2

If Clarke is appointed to this position, his job would be to bully other local law enforcement nationwide into enrolling in the 287g program to deputize officers as Immigration agents, as he has tried to do in Milwaukee.3 That is unacceptable!

In February, President Trump ordered a review by the Department of Labor of an Obama-era regulation that would require retirement advisors to give their clients investment advice that’s in their best interest. The rule, called the fiduciary rule, was scheduled to go into effect this spring, but is now delayed pending a review by the DOL.

It may seem obvious that financial advisors should act in your best interest. But currently many are only required to suggest investments that are “roughly suitable” for their client—not necessarily what’s best for them. They are even able to suggest investments in products that they may have a personal stake in bolstering. Under the Obama administration, the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimated that this greedy financial practice lost Americans $17 billion a year.

The DOL is accepting comments on the fiduciary rule until April 17th—giving us less than a week to convince them to side with current and future retirees over Wall Street bankers.

Financial groups and institutions are fighting hard to make sure they can continue defrauding investors on their best interests—and the Trump administration and Republican party are behind them.* In January, Congressman Joe Wilson (R- SC) introduced a bill that would delay implementation of the rule for a full 2 years with the hopes of eventually revoking it altogether.

But the public is on our side. As of mid-March, the DOL had received over 178,000 letters in support of the rule, with only about 15,000 against.

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*It should surprise no one that Republicans are behind barring implementation of the fiduciary rule. But just ponder for a moment that in the two years after the apex of the financial crisis (2008), Democrats held the presidency and both houses of congress—and yet they somehow did not manage to implement this simple, basic, ethical, commonsense regulation of Wall $treet. If it’s not because they couldn’t, well…I’m sure you can do the math. –Iris.

Freedom of speech is becoming even more of a crime under Trump’s reign. This weekend during an anti-Syrian war protest, a Trump supporter antagonized peaceful protesters, storming the speakers’ platform and physically assaulting them to start a fight. Instead of helping, four police officers tackled and brutalized the action organizer Connell Crooms, one of a few Black protesters present, and hit him so hard they knocked out his hearing aid. Bystander video footage shows officers beating him while he flailed helplessly and handcuffed on the ground. One officer punched Connell five times while other officers pinned him down.1

Connell was hospitalized and, along with other protesters, charged with inciting a riot and battery on a police officer. The Trump supporter who started the violent confrontation walked away scot free. Pinning bogus police endangerment charges onto protesters is exactly the outcome Trump desired when he introduced his Blue Lives Matter Executive Order in February.2 Trump and his supporters, like the Fraternal Order of Police, are using scare tactics to stifle peaceful protest. But we will not be silenced!

What happened to Connell exposes the long-standing intolerance and deep hostility Jacksonville has for protesters. When watching the footage, if it weren’t for their uniforms, it would be difficult to even tell the police from counter-protesters because the physical attack on Connell matched the verbal attacks being thrown at him by Trump supporters.

Just a few weeks ago, the city’s Sheriff was exposed for using internet software to surveil residents as they exercised their right to protest. Police tracked people using words like “protest” and “Black Lives Matter” on social media. Officers would even go as far as videotaping demonstrations and taking facial pictures of those in attendance. Jacksonville law enforcement appears to have forgotten that peaceful protest is a first amendment right in this country–not a crime. 3

Last election cycle, State Attorney Nelson beat out incumbent Last election cycle, State Attorney Nelson beat out incumbent Angela Corey, who sentenced domestic violence victim Marissa Alexander to 20-60 years in prison for firing a warning shot at her abusive ex in a desperate attempt to protect herself and children.4 Corey sentenced Marissa to 20 years in prison, but her case was overturned and Marissa was eventually forced to take a plea deal in order to gain her freedom. By ousting Corey last November, Floridians made it clear that they are tired of Black people being criminalized instead of protected by police. And Nelson must take heed of this message.

Time and time again the criminal justice system in the United States continues to disappoint and traumatize Black communities — ripping families apart and leaving communities to deal with the consequences of the lack of accountability from police officers, prosecutors, and judges. In North Carolina, we are confronted daily with a morally corrupt criminal justice system that destroys people’s lives, people like Dontae Sharpe.

Dontae has been incarcerated since the age of 19. He has now spent 22 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.1 Dontae has spent decades behind bars despite a complete lack of evidence against him, recanted witness testimony and mounting evidence of misconduct by police and prosecutors in Greenville, NC.

In the face of such grave injustice, we must act on the moral imperative to repair the harm to Dontae, his family and community. In this holy week, we must not forget that the Bible reminds us of our moral responsibility to proclaim liberty to the prisoner.2 For more than a year the North Carolina NAACP has called on the government of North Carolina to free Dontae Sharpe. Now, along with Dontae’s mother, Sarah Blakely, I am asking for the support of Color Of Change members to bring him home.

Dontae was convicted of a murder connected to a drug buy in 1994 but the case quickly fell apart. The prosecution’s key witness recanted her testimony within two months of the trial and a detective from the case has come forward to admit that Dontae was wrongfully convicted and that evidence in the case was selectively documented to build the case against him.

Yet, Pitt County Prosecutor Kim Robb refuses to reverse course. Theactions of the Pitt County District Attorney’s Office have convinced us that Robb has lost her way — focused on avoiding accountability for a grave misdeed, while Dontae is sacrificed in the name of maintaining the status quo. She knows that Dontae’s freedom exposes crookedness in the Pitt County Criminal justice system that continues to this day. It is time for her office to take responsibility and right this wrong, or declare a conflict in this case.

Dontae has spent over half of his life behind bars because he maintains his innocence. If he’d confessed to the crime he was convicted of he would be home today. His case is a tragic example of the deep-rooted brokenness of our criminal justice system where prosecutors and police can exploit racism and inequality to try and extract guilt from innocent people.

We know these are not isolated cases. In North Carolina and all across the country, there are thousands of cases where Black people have been wrongly convicted and harshly sentenced to prison for crimes they did not commit and that were never properly investigated.3Some have been exonerated but many more remain in prison and even on death row.4

There is a long history of Black people enduring the pain of being mistreated by the judicial system. From coerced confessions to ineffective eyewitnesses, misconduct by police, mishandling of DNA evidence, to biases from judges and prosecutors, Black communities suffer from a criminal justice system that repeatedly discriminates against them.

ButI believe we can correct these harms by joining together to call on those in power to do what’s right. Last year, in a troublingly similar case, we were able to help free Kalvin Michael Smith, after he was wrongfully imprisoned for 19 years by pressuring the Attorney General to show leadership.5 We can do the same for Dontae.

Dontae’s youth, freedom, and life are being stolen by the criminal justice that should have been protecting his innocence. Governor Cooper, Attorney General Josh Stein, and D.A. Kim Robb can now correct the mistakes made by the courts 2 decades ago— they can overturn this wrongful conviction and unite Dontae with his loved ones and return him to his community. We can’t wait another decade. We can’t wait another day.

Last night, he launched Tomahawk missiles into Syria without seeking any congressional approval. Since taking office, Trump has made a series of rash, hawkish and barbaric combat decisions that have already cost the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians and American military personnel. But this is worse than anything we have seen so far.

We need Congress to act quickly and decisively to rein Trump in. Trump has launched illegal military strikes. Now is not the time for congressional leaders to head out of Washington for spring recess. They must assert their constitutional authority and hold immediate and emergency deliberations on Trump’s continued reckless and unauthorized military actions in Syria.

It is undeniable that Assad’s regime is responsible for triggering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis – but Trump is acting in his own best interests, not those of the Syrian people. As humanitarians confronting the horror of the Syrian civil war, we must consider how we can best protect civilians and end the violence. Rash, illegal acts of war are not the way.

The backwards step of instigating illegal strikes in Syria is horrifying on multiple levels. The current Authorization for Use of Military Force that Congress passed post-9/11 does not authorize this strike.1 This latest attack also violates international law. The Charter of the United Nations is crystal clear on when it is legal to go to war: in the case of self defense or when it is approved by the U.N. Security Council.2 Trump not only met neither of these conditions, he also did not give Congress a chance to debate and vote on this illegal escalation.

Donald Trump has never articulated a vision or endgame for our involvement in Syria. Throughout his racist and misogynistic campaign, he tried to present himself as an anti-war candidate. But since his election, he has failed to invest in staff or strategies that will lead to anything other than American and civilian bloodshed.

Escalating our military entanglement in Middle Eastern countries – with the inevitable escalation of civilian casualties that comes with it – has been shown to actually help terrorists with recruitment. Trump’s reckless action is nothing more than a publicity stunt and an attempt to boost his plunging poll numbers and change the narrative for a dysfunctional administration that appears to be in complete disarray. It is a reckless abuse of power that shows a complete disregard for both the law and human life, and Congress must hold him accountable.

Congressional leaders must assert their constitutional authority to rein in a rash, out of control so-called president putting the lives of American military personnel and innocent civilians at risk, and they must do it now.

Now is the time for Congress to check and balance Trump.

Tell congressional leaders: Rein in Donald Trump’s unauthorized military strikes and hold immediate emergency deliberations on Trump’s illegal escalation of military engagement in Syria. Click the link below to sign the petition:

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*CREDO Mobile is a lefty activist mobile company: every month it allocates a portion of its revenue to various activist non-profits, as voted and allocated by its customers. (CREDO is, for example, Planned Parenthood’s largest corporate donor.) Consider switching to CREDO as your mobile carrier, and stop funding anti-democratic donors that fund conservatives like AT&T. They offer pretty much all the same deals on phones, contract buyouts, incentives, fees, etc.

Rewire this morning announced via email a new interactive tool for tracking the landscape of “religious imposition bills” (generally referred to by the enemies of humanity as “Religious Freedom™ bills”). As the release notes, already in 2017, 30 such bills have been introduced in state legislatures around the nation, including New York. It’s a good page to bookmark whether you are a writer or activist, as the fight on this front directly intersects with so many others. In addition, being a squeaky wheel at your state representatives’ offices and local newspaper is something all of us can do, and do more of, whenever these bills pop up.

We are writing to alert you to our Religious Imposition Legislative Tracker, a new resource from Rewire that provides a comprehensive database and interactive map of state and federal legislation that seeks to expand religious power control of decision-making in the public and private sphere.

The past few years have seen a sharp increase in legislative efforts to shield private individuals and businesses from complying with nondiscrimination laws, and permit them to deny people basic services based on stated religious beliefs. Around 30 such religious imposition bills have been introduced so far in 2017, in Alabama, Colorado, Kentucky, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.

Religious imposition frequently takes the form of expanded Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA) in state legislatures across the country. Other types of religious imposition include anti-transgender bills (or so-called “bathroom bills”), that target specific groups and seek to shield businesses and individuals from anti-discrimination laws. Still others, such as conscience and refusal bills, permit civil servants, health-care workers, and others to deny people access to birth control, abortion and other basic services based on a moral or religious objection.